I am excited to share with you how our daughter's 2 year old puppy party was a complete success. The ages of the kids that attended ranged from 1-10 and everyone had a great time. Though my daughter is as young as she is, I still wanted her to be involved as much as possible in the preparations.

For the invitations, I used a very easy dog origami pattern (Japanese paper folding) that only required 3 folds. To make the invitation we used a brown square of card stock or construction paper could be used (8"x8"). I helped her fold it in half to make a triangle and then with the flat edge at the top we folded the right and left corners down and out to the side a little to make the ears. Then we glued on the circle googly eyes and a black circle nose I cut out using a quarter for the pattern.

On the inside was a preprinted label I had made that read, "You're invited to a have a doggone fun time! Come wag your tail and wiggle your ears to celebrate Lauryn's 2nd year!!" Another preprinted label included the date, time, place, theme: "puppies" (wear anything that has to do with puppies/dogs) and an RSVP. My daughter then added puppy stickers to the inside of the invitation. Let me add that she had so much fun recognizing the squares, triangles, circles and rectangles that were recognized throughout making the invitation.

Some of the decoration, snack, and game ideas came from this very helpful site. The tablecloths were large sheets of brown and white paper that were decorated with stamped paw prints of different sizes. My daughter was also able to help with this. The party was in our backyard and around the fence and tied to the chairs and tables were puppy balloons. These were made with brown, white, and gold colored balloons. I used a permanent marker to draw simple doggie faces on the blown up balloons and attached basset-hound style ears, made with construction paper, to the sides with double stick tape or rolled clear packing tape. We made sure that we made a small tab on the inside of the ears for easy attachment and attached a black balloon ribbon at the base. These were precious.

I found a Clifford Doghouse on eBay at a great price that was easy to assemble. It sat near the entrance over a blanket on the ground and was where the presents were collected. I also went ahead and put a trash bag in there so I would be able to have one at hand when we opened the gifts. There were 4 tables set up. When the child arrived they first were taken to a table that had child size bandanas in a variety of colors, plastic silver dog tags on a chain, and plastic headbands with a variety of different types of dog ears attached to the tops. (The bandanas, and dog tags were purchased through Oriental Trading and the ears were made ahead of time by hand) I used felt and cut long, short, pointed, and all sorts of ears in doggie colors and hot glued them to the top or sides of the thin headbands. The children were able to select a bandana that was then loosely tied around their neck and a dog tag that we then wrote their name on with permanent marker and added a doggie bone sticker and then they selected their ears. The next table had doggie coloring pages and crayons set out for the younger kids and doggie bookmark kits (Oriental Trading) set out for the older kids.

At the end of the table someone was assigned to paint a black nose and little dots (where the whiskers are but we didn't paint whiskers because they would look like cats) on each face that wanted it. While kids were waiting to get their face painted they were able to keep busy with coloring or activity pages, or make a bookmark. You can only imagine how wonderful our pictures turned out with all of our cute and cuddly puppies. The centerpieces of all these tables were stuffed animal puppies holding bouquets of the puppy balloons.

After the children became puppies, they played a game of Doggie, doggie where's your bone? (I think this is well known in kindergarten) and a game of Puppy, PuppyDog (played the same as duck, duck goose). The older kids were great help for the younger ones. As time permitted or attention spans gave hints we also played follow the leader where the older kids took turns being the leaders as they led the kids through the yard doing various things dogs would do. (Ex. Scratch, bark, beg, rollover) As the games were coming to a close the food was being brought out. As they came back to the table we sang Today my friend is turning two and Lauryn is her name-o. L-A-U-R-Y-N sung to the tune of BINGO.

The food table was a hit. Each child had a blue or gray large dog bowl with their name on it and little bones drawn around their name and on the bowl. These were purchased for $0.97 each. Inside the bowl was room for a puppy cupcake, scoop of ice cream topped with small bone shaped dissolvable candies in assorted colors. We also served yummy ôpuppy chow made with a Chex cereal mix, peanut butter and powdered sugar. Assorted fruit, chips, and lemonade were also available. We did purchase doggie printed plates and cups for the adults as well as lots of doggie printed napkins. The cupcakes were adorable. I used regular vanilla cake mix and iced the tops with white or chocolate icing. Lauryn was also able to help with making the doggie cupcakes. Two Werther butterscotch candies were placed on the top sides for the ears, ( I gave the parents a warning about the hard candies before they were served) the eyes were iced on with black icing as well as the nose and where the mouth would be was a Scooby Doo graham cracker treat in the shape of a bone.

The cake I made was from a Wilton pan for Blues Clues but instead of Blue I used shades of brown and black and followed the same directions to decorate and it turned out beautiful. This was my first decorated cake and I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out. My daughter loved it. As we sang Happy Birthday after each phrase the kids would bark and at the end they howled It was priceless. Knowing my daughter doesn't eat much I had her open presents after she blew out her candles and was satisfied with her bowl of food. The food table was near the doghouse of presents so she sat close to the inside and kids that were finished eating joined her to hand her presents or finish coloring or working on their bookmarks. We also had leftovers to make the doggie balloons that were used to decorate and some kids made their own.

Having a two year old open presents can drag on so there was plenty of other activity going on to keep every one happy. We also took this time to give out the favor doggie bags. They were brown lunch sacks with a dog bone made out of white contact paper on the front with each child's name on it. Inside was Clifford band aids, doggie stickers, a thank you card from Lauryn for coming to the party, a bag of Clifford gummy characters, a bag of the soft bones candy, extra coloring pages, and of course their bandana, ears, dog tag, bookmarks, and their personalized doggie bowls.

During the opening of presents, I had an adult rinse out their bowls so they would be able to take it home. Many kids took home the balloons as well. I forgot to mention that when the doghouse was cleared of gifts the kids got inside and all around and had pictures made. We took one formal of everyone facing forward with their paws in a begging position and one with the kids in all sorts of puppy style positions.

My daughter is still talking about her puppy party and she revisits the pictures we made quite often recalling details of that day. Thanks to this site and so many of your ideas and some of my own we had a blast.